The Science of Butterflies
by Lux Piper
Summary: AU; One Shot; Femslash; Set during ST:VGR's "Future's End I&II" episodes & just before TXF's "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" episode.


The Science of Butterflies**  
><strong>Lux Piper

When I first saw her, it was like looking at myself in a mirror; the same, but altered—different age, different hair, different smile. I crossed my arms and arched my eyebrow and she put her hands on her hips and frowned. Maybe we were the same people in different timelines; maybe she was me and I was her and we were all together. For a while, I carried that image of us around in my head, as we ducked behind cars and raised our weapons, old and new, against men with far more advanced technology than either of us. We are scientists, we used logic to reason out situations and confront obstacles.

We sat in the hotel room late one night. The men were taking their turn in the van, their eyes and technology straining to see through the darkness just as we had done. We were drinking. The TV was on and we sat on the creaky king size bed, shoes on the floor and jackets on the chairs. The TV bathed the dingy room in Technicolor and we pressed our paper cups together and drank.

"I don't normally do this."

"Neither do I."

We drank.

"It's been a week."

"Yes."

"But you'll keep trying."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I promised to take them home."

"You are home."

"Right place, wrong time."

"You're like Mulder. He'll never give up on find out the truth."

"And you?"

"I'll follow him."

"Do you love him?

"Yeah, I guess so."

We filled our cups again, her hand shaking slightly as she poured. The TV announced involvements in soap and toys. I looked away and looked at her. Her mouth was parted slightly, her eyes fixed on the TV.

"But?"

"He's a little one track minded. Like you."

"Me?"

"Well, are you in love?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I was three years ago. His name was Mark."

"Was?"

"Is."

"And there hasn't been anyone since?"

"There could have been."

"Why wasn't there?"

"I'm the captain."

There was a long pause and the empty sound of the television filled the space between us. I caught her gaze and held it, her eyes the same blue as my eyes. I shivered.

"I'm afraid of the complications of love. It's easier to live every day alone than to risk the what-ifs of an open love."

"But it's lonely."

"Sometimes."

"What do you do?"

Her eyes, her eyes, her mouth; maybe I drank too much. I could see her chest rising and falling under her grey nondescript shirt; I could feel the static buzzing between us. Her voice was loaded and I thought maybe we had both had too much to drink.

"What everyone does."

And who moved first? Who touched who first? She tasted like lipstick and alcohol; her hand crept down my stomach and I sighed into her mouth. I tugged at her shirt and we pulled them over our heads and threw them to the floor where our discarded cups were staining the carpet. We pressed our foreheads together, eyes locked, arms wrapped around each other.

She was my mirror.

I laid her down, watching her back arch as she moved, watching her ribs create low hills on the soft valley of her stomach. I kissed them, and then up to her soft breasts, straining the confines of her bra, overflowing the cups and spilling over them. Her hard nipples dented the fabric. I pulled the straps down her arms and there they came, beautiful, sweet and round. I enclosed them in my hands and squeezed, feeling them, feeling her breath catch in her throat as I kissed it.

She grabbed my hair and pulled my head down. A strap fell down my arm and she pulled the other off with her teeth; she kissed me there, and there; she took my nipple in her mouth and rolled her tongue around it. I gasped into her ear and she moaned.

"Is this what you want?"

I crawled down her body, trailing my mouth and hands. I unzipped her pants and pulled them down, exposing all of her. She arched her back as I leaned down and when tasted her she cried out, her nails digging into my hair and back.

We are scientists. We know what orgasms are; we know the technicalities, we know the logic, we know the definition, even; an explosive discharge of neuromuscular tensions at the height of sexual arousal. But even we are left helpless in the throes of one; we are just as lost in our own desires as everyone else. Perhaps we simply have a clearer logic for them afterward, but I don't think so.

When she touched me and I arched my back and opened my mouth and let the butterflies fly off in my brain, they were the same butterflies as for everyone else, in that moment I had no technobabble for it, no logical explanation. I was seized, captured, taken, by the metaphysics of the universe.

And in the morning, we were scientists again.


End file.
